Johnson reshapes chaotic strategy to combat Scottish independence

Boris Johnson’s troubled Downing Street “union unit”, which was charged with drawing up a strategy to keep Scotland within the UK, is to be sidelined after convulsions in its leadership.

The prime minister will chair a new ministerial “union strategy committee” as he attempts to fight the Scottish National party’s push for independence. “We want to show how much we love Scotland,” said one Conservative official.

The government’s chaotic strategy towards Scotland was illustrated this month when Johnson sacked Luke Graham, a former Tory MP, as head of his union unit and replaced him with Vote Leave veteran Oliver Lewis.

Lewis, a protégé of former Downing Street chief adviser Dominic Cummings, favoured a confrontational approach towards the SNP. But last week he quit after only two weeks following a power struggle inside Number 10.

Alister Jack, Scotland secretary, on Thursday said the union unit was being “replaced” by the new cabinet committee, claiming it was a “step up” in engagement with the Scottish issue by senior ministers.

Johnson, who styles himself “minister for the union”, will chair the group. Attendees will include Rishi Sunak, chancellor; Michael Gove, Cabinet Office minister; and the secretaries of state for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Lord David Frost, former Brexit negotiator, will also attend. Frost’s new role as de facto EU minister in the cabinet includes responsibility for post-Brexit border issues in Northern Ireland.

“The tortured life and death of their ‘union unit’ has been one of the most compelling little psycho dramas that has ever existed in the ‘preservation’ of their ‘precious union’,” said SNP MP Pete Wishart. “They are utterly clueless in how to confront their union’s inevitable demise.”

Johnson is being urged by Gove and Jack to adopt a less confrontational approach to Nicola Sturgeon’s administration and to show that the UK government is working for the people of Scotland.

Gove, who now hosts a meeting with Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish leaders every Wednesday, is a key advocate of the strategy of making devolution work while demonstrating the value of the UK to all four nations.

In a sign of the new approach, the Treasury has announced that £800m of investment by the UK government in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will be distributed from Westminster through local councils — bypassing devolved administrations.

The money from the UK levelling up fund, including an estimated £400m for Scotland, will go towards town centre and high street regeneration, local transport, cultural and heritage projects.

The SNP, which wants the money to go directly to the Scottish government, called it a “naked power grab”. The government’s recently enacted internal market bill allows the ministers to distribute some cash in Scotland without going via Holyrood.

Jack told BBC Scotland it was “devolution in practice”, adding: “Scotland has two governments.”

He said: “The new UK levelling up fund is a fantastic example of the UK government delivering for people in Scotland.

“This fund will allow us to directly invest in capital projects in Scotland. I look forward to working on the delivery of the fund in Scotland and with local authorities, who know best what their communities really need.”

Johnson has argued that the UK government’s handling of the Covid-19 vaccination programme has been another clear sign of the benefits to Scotland of remaining in the 300-year-old union.